Hockey sticks are generally comprised of a blade portion and an elongated shaft portion. Traditionally, each portion was constructed of wood or a wood laminate and attached together at a permanent joint. These days many hockey sticks are constructed of engineered composite materials having either detachable or permanently attached blades. In these more contemporary constructions, the shaft is often times constructed by overlaying a mandrel of suitable dimension with plies of fibers and a resin to create an uncured shaft pre-form. The shaft pre-form is then cured by subjecting it together with the mandrel to heat which upon cooling results in the fibers being disposed in a hardened resin matrix. The mandrel is then removed by sliding it out of one end of the cured tubular shaft. The tubular composite shaft is often times further processed (painted, sanded etc.) and then either sold separately or mated to a detachable or permanently attached blade and sold as a complete hockey stick unit.
Similarly, contemporary composite hockey stick blades are typically constructed by wrapping multiple plies of fibers over one or more core elements to create a hockey stick blade pre-form. The blade pre-form is then placed within a mold where the resin, which is either pre-impregnated in the fiber plies or added via a resin transfer process, is cured. The curing process hardens the resin so that the fibers become disposed within a hardened resin matrix while the mold defines the exterior shape of the cured blade. Once molded and cured the blade may be further finished by deburring and perhaps with a coat of paint or exterior decals or the like and is then sold separately or as a hockey stick unit as previously described.
Typically the hockey stick blade is attached to the shaft via a “tennon” or “hosel” section, which is generally comprised of an upward extension of the blade from the heel and is dimensioned at its upper end to be slidably and snugly received within a generally rectangular lower tubular end of the shaft. Such hockey stick constructions and joints are disclosed in commonly owned U.S. Pat. Nos. 7,097,577 and 7,144,343 which are hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety. In addition to such four-plane lap joint connections, some composite hockey sticks employ connections in which the shaft and the blade are mated together in a tongue and groove type configuration located at the heel as is disclosed in commonly owned U.S. Pat. No. 7,097,577, which is also hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
Once cured, composite shafts and blades are typically not further processed other than in the way of exterior finishing steps like deburring, painting, decaling, assembly and perhaps in some cases applying a thin high-friction coating to the outer exterior of the shaft for purposes of enhancing the grip of the user. The weight distribution of the stick therefore is primarily determined by the fiber ply lay-up, the resin distribution, and in the case of the blade the core elements (typically a light heat expandable foam). The manner by which these materials are distributed along the shaft is primarily driven by structural concerns. For example, high impact areas may have additional plies of fibers. Shafts that are meant to have greater flexibility may have fewer plies or perhaps fewer plies oriented in a manner to stiffen the longitudinal flex of the shaft. While such constructions have found wide acceptance by hockey players world-wide, until now there has been little or no attention directed to positioning focused weight within discrete locations in the shaft and/or blade of a hockey stick.